UTMC opens first off-campus physician’s office
2/15/2012The University of Toledo Medical Center is opening the first of several physician’s offices away from its South Toledo campus.
A Family Physicians primary care clinic is set to open Thursday at the corner of Talmadge Road and Sylvania Avenue in West Toledo — an intersection Scott Scarborough says sees more traffic everyday than any other location in northwest Ohio. A second clinic could open this summer in the Perrysburg area, he said.
“This is the first of what should be several physician offices that we open,” said Mr. Scarborough, senior vice president and executive director of UTMC, the former Medical College of Ohio Hospital. “And consistent with our characteristic of being an academic medical center, there is going to be an educational component with these.”
The clinic will feature a high-tech classroom where patients and the general public can take health and wellness classes. Mr. Scarborough said the clinic also will be an experiment of sorts for an institution that is always striving to learn new and better ways to do things.
“Being a university medical center, what we’re trying to do is find if we can invent a better mouse trap — is there a way for health care providers to provide a higher form of primary care experience?” he said. “Normally, when I go to the doctor I’m always waiting. We’re trying to design something where the waiting room becomes obsolete.”
Mr. Scarborough said the new clinics will incorporate a combination of technology and staffing that will “keep the system moving” for patients.
“There is also the possibility that we can tap into our home campus through telemedicine technology,” he said. “It also might allow a physician on our home campus to see a patient through a telemedicine link. These are the kinds of things we’re experimenting with. Our hope is if we can develop a model that works and produces a higher primary care experience then we’ll begin to replicate the facility in other parts of the community.”
The new clinic will be staffed by Dr. Lawrence Monger, an internal medicine specialist with interests in preventative medicine, weight loss, exercise, and nutrition. He is coming to UTMC from St. Vincent Health in Indianapolis.
A “6 Weeks to Wellness” educational program is being offered at the new clinic from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. each Tuesday beginning March 6. The cost for the first-time classes is $220.